How to remove gel nail polish

I absolutely love gel manicures and pedicures – so much that I recently bought a kit to do them at home (more info about the kit coming soon). Removing gel nail polish can be tricky and in the beginning I really struggled to remove all the polish in one go. Now I’ve learned that patience is the keyword in the process 🙂 If you have some gel nail polish that you want to remove, grab the following:

Cotton

Cutex remover with acetone

Foil

Ready? Let’s get going!

Starting the removal process

Pardon my funny looking feet…I was wearing pumps and lace secret socks just before I started – hence the funny lines 🙂 Soak pieces of cotton in the cutex remover (don’t be shy with the amount of cutex remover!), place it on your nail and wrap your toe with the foil. Do this with both feet.

All toes wrapped…now to wait

Once you have all your toes wrapped, put on your favourites series or read a book for 20 to 30 minutes. No need to check before the time is up if the gel is already dissolved, it will take a while for the cutex remover to do its job.

Almost done!

After 20 to 30 minutes, remove the foil and cotton and your nail polish should be looking like mine in the photo above – all flaky and loose.

Scrape off the gel nail polish

The last step is to scrape off the remaining gel nail polish. If there is a stubborn piece, you can put the cotton and foil back on to remove it, or file / buff it off. That’s it! It really is as easy as that – but you do need to wait long enough for the cutex remover to do its job. Also, make sure that you use a cutex remover with acetone otherwise its not going to work. If you have any questions, ask me in the comments 🙂